
Class SX3<5i^ 
CopyrightN"_/^Z^ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 






BY 
KENNETH RAND 

Author of "The Rainbow Chaser," 
"The Dirge of the Sea-Children," etc. 




BOSTON 

SHERMAN, FRENCH Sp COMPANY 

1915 



\ 






copthight, 1915 
Shermak, French ^ Company 



DEC ! 7 1915 
©CU416935 



TO 
THE DREAM MAIDEN 

Because I may not find thee, though I seek i 

West of the setting sun, east of the morn, \ 

And trudge my weary pilgrimage forlorn I 

From darkling valley-road to lonely peak, \ 

I send my dream, — if so it he the flesh. 

To spite my haunted journey, hold thee still; ■ 

If so thou standest on a dawn-red hill, I 

Haloed in wonder by thy tresses' mesh; 

If so thou waitest by the cloud-run sea, 

With gypsy ripples lapping at thy feet, ; 

And echoes of my song may drift to thee, ' 

And thou, perchance, may find my singing \ 

sweet, — ■ 

/ send thee all my brain and soul and art, i 

To stroke one chord responsive in thy heart! 



The author wishes to 
thank the editors of The 
Yale Review for permis- 
sion to reprint " Credo," 
which is included in this 
volume of poems. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Prelude — The Dreamer 1 

Credo ^ 

From the Earth-oracle 5 

A Song op Hy-Brasil 6 

Cavalier ^ 

Impenitence 1^ 

To 18 

Spring in the Semi-tropics 19 

Eros Ephemeras ^^ 

Ante Lucem ^^ 

" I Stumbled from a Merry Inn " . . .24 

The World-slave 26 

To the Time-god 27 

To All Ye Motherless 28 

Dream-sonnets 29 

The Vermeil Flower ^5 

The Cliff of Tears .37 

" Curtain " ^^ 



THE DREAMER 
AND OTHER POEMS 



PRELUDE 
THE DREAMER 

Mistress, when all the world is plunged in 
dream — 

That magic hour of fading western fire 
When the dull hosts of prosy Reason seem 

Like infants wailing for a dumb desire — 
Sudden my heart is freed, and flies afar 

Over the barren rims of earth, and drops 
Into the gay death-splendor of Thy war. 

Where fearing stops. 

For what is Dream but Reason shackle- free ? 

Know ye the shifting bounds of Life and Death ? 
The witch-work of Thy radiance on the sea. 

The warm enchantment of Thy scented breath? 
Lo, I have thought and seen and felt and heard 

Dark vivid things my waking senses scorn. 
Till I am troubled by Thy smothered word. 

Stilled at the morn. 

Up and away to seek it ! Sign or name 

I may not lend the dreamland of my thought; 
A sable island fronting seas of flame. 

The staging of a drama vision-wrought — 
How may I find ray spectre-kingdoms, won 

By shadow-cohorts lost on shoreless seas ? 
The star-illumined bivouacs of the Sun 

Have harbored these. 



[1] 



Over the waste of sea ! The crashing bows 

Hammer the wander-measure through ray blood, 
And, eager, raise the wizard-isles, and rouse 

The shouting rapture of the battle-flood ! 
Victory, fame and homage, love and wine. 

Brimming the fairy flagons to the rim ! 
On to the Triumph! — Wake . . . The fire divine 

Flags and is dim. 



m 



CREDO 

Though flesh may hold with bonds of tempered 
steel 
(And this, O soul, we may but know too 
well), 
'Fore God, it cannot bid us not to feel 
Passion of heaven and hell! 
It may not turn the eye 
Blind to the sky 
That once with insight clear 
Has pierced the muffling scarf of shadows 
here; 

It may not veil the wonder of the sea, 
A-flame with sun and wind and azure mystery ; 
It may not chill the warm heart of the spring 
That touches with its blood the robin's 
breast. 
And stirs the magic of the swallow's wing ; 
It may not dim the splendor of the west 
When poets whisper, " Lo, the Titan dies," 
And find a shambles in the sunset skies ; 

Nor for a single hour 
Crush with its fetters' weight the grace of one 
small drooping flower. 

I think the soul of Man is but the sense 

That teaches us the magic of the world. 
And but for aid of this high evidence 
[3] 



There were no virtue in the shouting creeds, 
Nor credence in the Truths the prophets 
hurled, 
Nor faith that follows where a hero leads. 
Nor strength that bends the seeking oar and 
spreads the sail unfurled. 

There were no will to dare. 
Did we not dream of heaven beyond the hill ; 

There were no venturing on hidden roads. 
Did we not see the fairy torches flare, 

And turn our travelers' huts to kings' abodes, 
And all our barren wastes of travail fill 
With blossoms of our dream-Hesperides. 
There were no daring of uncharted seas. 
Did we not glimpse a land beyond the sun. 

Beyond the moon and stars. 
Drawing us joyous through uncounted wars 
On a long restless journey never done! 

And cry ye " Pagan ! " through the market- 
place ? 
Nay, brother, speak ye gently, — 'tis my 
dream 
That best on dawn-red hills I seek the Master's 
face. 
More nearly find Him by a sunlit stream. 



[4] 



FROM THE EARTH-ORACLE 

COWARD Faith that bows to cheerless gods, 
Kissing thy scourge of craven hope and fear, 

1 bid thee hark the gay wind in the trees. 

And seek the laughing faces 
Of half-seen fauns that haunt the sunlit woods ; 
I bid thee dare the windy solitudes 

Of barren, shipless seas ; 

I bid thee bear the drear, 
Cathedral loneliness of mountain spaces. 

Star-haunted empty places 
Stirred with the flutter of Time's ageless wings ; 
I bid thee ban all puppet mysteries, 
And, sounding Nature, find the Soul of Things. 
O coward Faith that prays to hidden gods. 

For thine own sake see clear ! 

For would the weakest fear to die 
If what thou callest Death were but to blend 
With all the breathing world of sun and sky 

And friendly stars ? — 
With all eternity to wander in. 
So high above all Piety and Sin 

They seem the petty wars 
Of ants that battle on the garden path, 
A brief hour, ere the Gardener, in His wrath, 
Make of them kin to seons without end ! 



[5] 



A SONG OF HY-BRASIL 

West away beyond the world, there my king- 
dom lies — 

Where the sunset-kindled clouds flame across 
the skies. 

You could know my kingdom, too, had you eyes 
to see 

Where my bannered cities blaze in their maj- 
esty! 

Just beyond the western hills, ere the shadows 
run. 

You could glimpse my castles in my Province 
of the Sun. 

West away beyond the world, there the dream- 
ers fled 
AVhen their fairy poppies failed, withered sere 

and dead; 
When they found the dreams they lived scarcely 

worth the dreaming, 
And the gold of all the world naught for their 

redeeming. 
Oh, 'twas drab the weary, till they won beyond 

the hill. 
And walked as knights of Fairyland and lords 

of Hy-Brasil! 

West away beyond the world, there's the place 
to find ! 

[6] 



Oh, the road is plain to go if you be not blind. 

Seek you where your dream has blown — ask 
the wind the sea ; 

Once a maiden's weary eyes sought the way of 
me, 

(And times I think she found the road, and 
seem to see her there 

With the love-tears on her lashes and the sun- 
light on her hair.) 

West away beyond the world, I am fain to 
follow 

(Red the fairy hilltop flares o'er the purple 
hollow !) 

For the road is plain to find, where it stretches 
white 

Like a pallid ribbon in the ebon locks of Night. 

And oh, my heart is over-fain to chase the sun- 
set-gleam 

Till west away beyond the world I win again my 
dream ! 



[7] 



CAVALIER 

I SENT my heart to the barren rims of the world, 
And bade it seek, seek, seek for the fairy bloom 
That I dreamed I plucked in the fields of the 

Joyous Doom — 
When the laughing Death that thrills as the 

touch of Love 
Dropped, with her bright wings furled, 
From the heavens above 
And brushed my lips with the cool red rose of 

her mouth. 

And my heart flew south. 

Through the sun-racked zones to the torch of 
the polar flare. 

And answered, " It was not there. 

The sorcerer's blossom of life from the fields of 
Death. 

But hark ! There are wondrous flowers 

In the haunted woods 

Of a lonely isle that I found in a lonely sea, 

And an old god saith. 

An old stone god in the sentinel solitudes. 

That * Better ye plunder the wealth of the 
kindly bowers 

Of the mothering World 

Than harry with passion the thickets of mys- 
tery: " 

[8] 



And my heart with its wings close-furled 
Dropped as a stone in my breast. 

But I flung it west, 

Where the sunset roared like the lowermost 

gates of hell, 
And I bade it seek, seek on for the fairy bloom 
Whose beauty was more than the singers of 

dreams could tell — 
The bright red blossom of life from the meadows 

of doom, 
That I plucked as the laughing Death, on her 

dove-soft wings. 
Stooped overhead, and kissed me awake from 

my dream. 
— Yet I flung her the flower as a rose that a 

lover flings 
Through the shadowed square 
Of an opened casement black in the moonlight's 

blaze, 
Ere I woke with the gleam 
Of the sun in my eyes, like a rose-lit lamp 

through the haze. 

So my heart flew far 

Till it dwindled and vanished to naught in the 

pallid rays 
Of the evening star ; 
Yet answered, " It was not there — 



[9] 



The sorcerer's blossom of life that grows in the 
fields 

Of the pale asphodels, 

Where its red is as gay as the spatter of blood 
on snow. 

But, see, what the fair west yields — 

Gold, and gold, and gold. 

Warm as the sun, and all 

That your arms can hold 1 

And an old god tells — 

An old stone god, all worn by the seasons' 
flow — 

That * Better it is to live as the senses' thrall 

And plunder the wealth of the kindly bosom of 
Earth 

Than bow to the Moloch of Thought, 

In shadowy longing that drives to the Mys- 
tery.' " 

And my tired heart fought 

With a weariness deep as the sea, 

And fawned and drooped in its need, but I flung 
it forth 

To the barren north. 

I prayed to the laughing Death that the goal 

be won — 
That the quest be done ; 
But most, that I glory again in the touch of her 

lips. 
So cool and sweet, 

[10] 



And bury my torturing soul in the drowning 

bliss 
Of her half meant kiss, 
While the perfume drips 
From the sorcerer's flower that hangs in the net 

of her hair, 
While the pulses beat 
With the joy that is only for Life when it lies 

in the arms 
Of the laughing Death ! 
— But my heart flew back on the chill o' the 

north-wind's breath. 
And answered, " It was not there. 
The blossom you sought; but, look you, what 

northern charms 
I fling on the ground — 
Lichen that grows like a scab 
On the glacier's lip. 
Draggled and dun and drab ; 
But, wonder! I found 
This — wee flower of the ice, where the wet 

snows slip 
And the slanting sun-rays cross. 
Little Queen Star-Eye, crouched in the moss ! 
And an old god droned, 
An old stone god all scratched by the claws of 

the years, 
A rune that saith, 
* It is better to learn with Life 
Of the worth of strife, 

[11] 



And mock, in thy fear, at Death, 

Than to water thy steed Unrest at the tropic 

pools of thy tears/ " 
And my sick heart moaned 
Like a stricken beast. 

But I spurred it east, 

To seek, seek, seek for the fairy bloom that I 

knew 
Death wore in her hair ; 
And I swore there was none so fair 
As my Death, with her dove-soft wings and her 

luring eyes 
That mocked me, and yet shone true 
When she stooped overhead where I kneeled 
With the flower in my hand, 
And hallowed my lips with the grace of her 

petal-mouth, 
Till my soul's long drouth 
Stirred like a spring-touched field 
At her half-command. 

Do ye call Death grim? 

Then ye know her not. She is kind. 

She is mild as an August wind. 

And her lips are soft and sweet as an August 

rose, 
And her eyes are dim 
With the pathos, the sorrows and pities, of time 

out of mind; 

[12] 



Yet she laughs, as one laughs through tears 

At a gallant jest 

Or a gallant pose 

When the devil sits on the laboring breast 

With a scourge of the wasted years. 

Yet I love Death best 

When she mocks, like a dear coquette, 

And tosses her silken ringlets back from her 

brow 
And laughs in your face, " Ahy beloved, not 

yet — 
Not now — " 
And then comes the beat of a shadowy wing, 

and the touch of a hand. 
And tresses that brush on your cheek — just a 

wandering strand 
Of raven-hued silk. — O ye minions of Danger 

and Chance, 
Do ye half understand.? 
'Tis RomaTiee! 

Back from the east 

Came my heart like a wounded beast. 

And answered, " It was not there. 

The sorcerer's bloom, the rose that you dreamed 

so fair. 
But lo ! I have brought 
Spoil that will buy you a monarch as soon as a 

knave — 

[13] 



Body and soul and bones, 

For a cringing slave ! 

Baubles so wrought 

With devil-gift skill, they are lechers to ravish 

the eyes; 
Glittering stones 
New-dropped out of Paradise; 
Maidens to love you, the daughters of Beauty 

by Sin — 
Lilith's own kin I 
And visions of dawnings like doom breaking 

over the world, 
And sunsets like Lucifer's banners in battle un- 
furled. 
And memories haunting as crimes — 
And a tale that an old god told, 
An old stone god, all worn by his worshippers' 

lips. 
* Better to live as the flowering creeper that 

climbs 
Like a snake in the sttn. 
Or the -fly where the spUt honey drips 
In its amber and gold. 
Than run like a madman a race that can never be 

won 
And the ending of which is the same for the 

creeper and fly 
As for thee! ' " 
So my heart won free, 
And crept in my breast to die. 
[14] 



Yet I looked to the sky, 

For I knew that my heart was wrong, 

And I prayed to my Death to stoop while I still 

was strong — 
Ere the flavor had gone from the cup, or the Hit 

from the song, 
Or the zest from the kiss ; 
While I still, with her arm on my shoulders, 

could mock at the Dark — 
Laughing and gallant and stark. 
With a treasure to hazard, and lose, as a gen- 
tleman should. . . . 
And at this 
Came a voice like a call from the heart ot an 

ancient wood — 
Pagan as Pan's love-cry 
'Neath a Grecian sky ; 
And I knew that my fair Death heard. 
For I felt of a sudden the brush of her hair 

wind-stirred. 
And the touch of her lips, and the Rose 
I had sought all the wide world over, 
For which I had braved 
All the sins and the sorrows of living, was mme. 

at the close 
Of the play. . . . And I knew I was saved. 
Who was Death's own lover. 



[15] 



IMPENITENCE 

They were not long, the dear, enraptured revels 
Flung in a motley on the toneless years ; 

Now must we dare alone the long grey levels, 
And stoop to tears. 

Not ours, in craven hope, to pray for pardon ; 
(That which we did, O Love, we knew too 
well!) 
Now must we teach our hearts and souls to 
harden. 
And bear our hell. 

Yet — can I see thy fair face marred with weep- 
ing- 
Feel thy hot anguish and thy needless 
shame — 
Knowing no hot, rebellious madness leaping 
In a wild eager flame 

To smite all earth and heaven with dumb resist- 
ance ? 
Gods, how I hate all slaves and Pharisees ! 
Prating of " sin," yet keeping their wary dis- 
tance 
Safe from its mysteries ! 



[16] 



They were not long, the days of love and glad- 
ness, 

Yet did we sin, whatever path we trod — 
For at the end we dared (and this was madness) 

Dream of a saner God! 



[17] 



TO 



If the Parian lyric in stone is a labor of love 
That the sculptor has wrought from the pain 
of his passion's eclipse, 
I wonder what epic of grief was the Master's 
above, 
Who fashioned the curve and the rose-petal 
bloom of jour lips ! 

Oh, barren the triumph, and weary the struggles 
of men, 
And idle the plague of the pulse and the fal- 
tering breath ; 
Yet I need but your beauty for proof I shall 
barken again 
To the lilt of your heartening laugh at the 
gateway of death. 



[18] 



SPRING IN THE SEMI-TROPICS 

The tossing tops of the palms are loud with a 
wind from the Spanish Main 

That strums the harp of the sunlit beach to a 
sounding old refrain ; 
Oh, clear and blue as a maiden's eyes the clean 

sea-spaces lie, 
Till my heart is off with the wheeling gulls 
that jest with the lonely sky — 

Off to the rim of the ocean-world, to my lost sea- 
love again. 

Whose hair is spun of the windy scud and whose 
robe is the summer rain. 

Over the rim of the world of men I know that my 

love is true — 
Who is naught of flesh, who is naught of blood, 
but born of the windy blue ; 
Her name we stammer with halting tongues 

— we hearts that have heard her call 
Through the din of an hundred smoky towns, 
and found her the best of all ! 
Oh, we name her Spring, or Daxtm-on-the-Sea, 

or Rapture-that-once-we-knew, 
But the grey gull knows that the names are one 
when it comes to the tribute due. 
So ifs offy my heart, to the rim of the world, 

to your lost sea-love again. 
Whose hair is spun of the windy scud and 
whose robe is the summer rain! 
[19] 



EROS EPHEMEROS 

Red is the flower of thy mouth 

As the wine that the flagon spatters, 
And the heart of the windy south 

Is meshed in thy hair to-day. 
There is little of strength or worth 

To tell of our love — what matters ? 
Let us talk with the warm old earth 

And argue our sins away. 

The cup of thy parted lips 

Is a calyx of crimson petals 
A god in his fancy strips 

From a stalk that the Graces tend. 
I would rather thy beauty's sight 

Than a mountain of precious metals — 
Yet they say that our love is light, 

And that shame is our passion's end! 

Warm is the pulse of thy breast. 

And the wraith that I served is vanished — 
The love that I dreamed the best 

Ere I found thee, dear, in the sun. 
'Twas a vision of ceaseless tears 

And a heart that was true, though banished 
To a twilight of lonely years 

On a quest that could ne'er be won — 



[20] 



And I dreamed o'er-sad, till the kiss 

Of the tips of thy petal-fingers 
Woke me at last to the bliss 

Thou keepest this day for me. 
Oh, the morrow of pain and dole 

Is naught while the sunlight lingers, 
And to-day I would risk my soul 

For that flower-red mouth of thee ! 



[21] 



ANTE LUCEM 

Over the hill, the sea, 

And the dusk of a setting star, 
And the intimate mystery 

Of the wise and voiceless night; 
A sea-wind drones afar 

On the harp of a stormy height, 
And the Things-that-were run free 
To mock at the Dreams-that-are. 

Hark ye their ancient tale: 

" When the curtain of time is torn, 
Ye may see how the visions fail 
Till only remains despair. 
God is a creed outworn, 

Ill-wrought from a mirage fair. 
And life is an image pale 

That faces a sunless mom." 

Beyond the world, the dark. 

And the marching stars overhead 
Treading their changing arc 

Like the dial-hands of time. 
Oh, joy is a fancy sped 

And love is a jeering mime! 
The sea lies dumb and stark. 

And the dreams of the world are dead. 



[22] 



Was it a hope, the spark 

There in the east that gleamed? 
''Fool,'' comes the whisper; " Hark! 

Even so we have dreamed! '* 



[23] 



" I STUMBLED FROM A MERRY INN " 

I STUMBLED from a merry inn and met my love 

in Naishapur 
(In Naishapur, in Naishapur, I flung my youth 

away !) — 
And ruddy fell the moonlight as the ruby from 

a flagon-rim. 
Dripping o'er the housetop where the purple 

shadows play; 
Purple shadows beckoning across the scented 

garden-close. 
Where her white hand led me through the red 

moon's ray — 
Ay, and was it Ramazan? Pious love is pale 

and wan — 
So with Sin in Naishapur we flung our youth 

away 1 

The moon was high above us and its pallid light 

was silver-clear; 
(Crimson for the birth of love, and silver for 

its fall!) 
Ere I kissed her parted lips, so petal-soft and 

velvety, 
Eblis oped before me mid the vine-leaves on 

the wall. 
" Dare ye love in Ramazan? " (O love and 

wine in Ramazan!) 

[24] 



Yet I laughed the sin away 'neath the shad- 
ow's palL 
" Think ye He will let it pass, dancers on the 
moonlit grass? 

Nay, for He avengeth, though the troubled 
planets fall! " 

Oh, yet I dream Mahomet sees, as looking from 
eternity 
(He gazes from eternity, O hakim? May I 
know?) 
He whispers to the Lord of Life, *' 'Tis Omar in 
his wilderment. 
His wilderment of wine and love he may not 
yet forego. 
Purple shadows — purple shadows — love and 
wine and garden-scents ; 
Lord, I think Thou knowest how Thy sinful 
children sow; 
Look, I pardon Omar! Wilt Thou speak for 
him, O Merciful?" 
" Ay, and am I one to sell my dreaming chil- 
dren down to hell? 
Mahomet, Prince of Dreamers, surely thou, of 
all, shouldst hmow! " 



[25] 



THE WORLD-SLAVE 

Gods, give me but the courage of my dream, 
To face the world, and know my dreaming 

true — 
Courage to dare the blame that is my due, 
And snatch my guerdon from the dawning- 
beam ! 
Give me but strength, if only strength in sin ; 
Give me but passion, though it stoop to 

shame ; 
Let me leap naked through life's testing 

flame. 
And bear to lose, and yet endure to win : 

So might I reach thee, Love, in thy unworth, 
(Thus doth the blind world dub thy long de- 
spair!) 
Raising thee in my arms above the earth, 

Till I should find thee all an angel there — 
Thou poppy-blossom flung in a busy street. 
Trampled and tattered, spurned by the heed- 
less feet ! 



[26] 



TO THE TIME-GOD 
SONNET 

I THINK we are what Time may make us — 
lords 
Of wealth and land, or wagemen held at hire ; 
Turning the years, we gain our toil's desire, 
Or lose, inopportune, its high rewards. 
Mark ye the pompous merchant's golden 
hoards ? 
Ha! 'Twas a chapman's scrip and drab 

attire ! 
While lo, this sad-eyed sot o' the gutter's 
mire 
Might have worn well a martyr's galling cords. 

Barons and beggars, masks on the stage of 
Time, 
I cry ye, curb your shame or proud unrest — 
Ye are but actors moved at Time's behest. 

And king or slave as shifts the pantomime. 

A cycle's turn — the dreamer leaves his rhyme 
And with the old Olaf dares the goblin West ! 



[87] 



TO ALL YE MOTHERLESS 

O CHILDREN who havc never known the clasp 
Of those dear arms that fend away the world, 
Surely the kindly gods will know the why 
Of a fair portion of our restless sins ! 
Surely the kindly gods will pardon us, 
Poor foster-children of the careless Earth 
Whose brood is all too great for tenderness ! 
We may find loves and friends in womankind, 
White arms that cling and cool white hands that 

soothe, 
But we can never know the first and best. 
Perchance we may but find her in our dreams, 
Perchance we may not even find her there, 
Perchance our memories may not limn her 

face — 
Yet shall we sense a lack when most we need. 
In hopeless moments when the strongest knows 
That he is but an infant in the dark. 
Therefore I think the gods will pardon us 
Of a fair portion of our restless sins. 
Lone children who have never known the clasp 
Of those dear arms that fend away the world. 



[28] 



DREAM-SONNETS 

There is a wind that drones around the world 
And sifts the snow against the window-panes; 
The winter-monotones of evening fade 
Into the drab of starless night; the frost 
Fastens its chilly fingers on the throat 
Of Nature till the breath of life is stilled, 
And there is naught but dream to light the 
world. 



O golden myths of sun and azure sea, 

May I still find your glory through the 
night ? 

May I still know the rapture and delight 
Of tropic dawns of lure and mystery ? 
Glint of the morn on streams of Castaly, 

Caught through the cloud-veil of a mist- 
hung height ; 

Islands of wonder, beautiful and bright ; 
And liigh Parnassian peaks of fantasy — 

These are but glimpses of the sunlit land 

I think I knew once, ere my vision dimmed ; 
When, like a gay child on a sea-worn strand, 
I felt naught but the spendor of the days. 
And deemed the stars that pricked the sun- 
set-haze 
Aladdin-lamps by fairy fingers trimmed. 
[29] 



II 



the world, that fade and break and 
blend 
Into new shapes of wonder and romance! 
Whirling like autumn leaves in a windy dance, 
They spin their crimson textures without end. 
Ravel and weave and twist and tear and mend — 
All on the clumsy loom of Circumstance — 
Till the poor homely webs of Fate and Chance 
Are scrolled with runes the Sun-God might have 
penned. 

O joy that spurs in turmoil through the veins, 
Surely we owe thy rapture to the dream 

That splits the wind's wail into love-refrains 
And finds a godhead in the dawning-beam — 

That risks a horde of pallid truths, and gains 

One dear, shy naiad from a woodland stream ! 



[30] 



Ill 



The world of fact is like my firelit room, 

My dream-world like the shouting night out- 
side — 

Hazard and love and war and seas untried, 
And highways winding on through sun and 

gloom ! 
O'er far horizons fairy mountains loom, 

And towered cities flaunt in bannered pride ; 

Mine is the risk to dare, the joust to ride, 
And mine the tryst amid the garden's bloom. 

Visions of wonder ! See, the firelight fades — 
For truth is turned to dream, and dream to 
truth. 
The leaping flames are bright, elf-smithied 
blades 
Hilted with rubies, in an armourer's booth ; 
While down a steep hill-street I glimpse the sea. 
And quaint-rigged ships from Ind and Araby. 



[SI] 



IV 



I met Love at the crosswajs of a street 

(Far in a cloud-cuckoo-town of my thought), 
And lo, I dreamed that 'twas for her I sought 

Over my vision-world with weary feet. 

It seemed that Love alone made living sweet, 
That for a life her kiss were cheaply bought. 
Till all the prosy creeds the sages taught 

Fell light as winds that stir the summer wheat. 

Oh, though I found her where the way was loud 
With half-hid lust of rake and Pharisee, 

I dreamed her sudden truth a world more proud 
Than any praised, untested chastity ; 

Yet waked to grudge my meed of cleansing fire 

Because her sandals showed a touch of mire. 



[32] 



Love, I have led thee into devious ways 

Till thy dear feet are stained with blood and 

dust, 
Thy bright hair tousled by each wantoning 
gust 
Till none may note the pathos in thy gaze. 
Have I been spendthrift of thine altar-blaze? 
Have I been base, that men miscall thee Lust? 
Have I been, then, so faithless to my trust? 
The dead years drone, ** And for thy fault Love 
pays:' 

O Time, and didst thou once bring golden hours 
When I discerned her temples on the height, 
And did I choose instead the wild delight 
That beckoned red-lipped from the valley-bow- 
ers? 
Gods ! Do I not pay, too, when through the 
night 
Love still comes groping, wreathed with with- 
ered flowers? 



[33] 



VI 



Just for a bright and fleeting hour to hold 

The glories of the ages in thy brain ! 

Is it not worth the barren days of pain 
When fades the dream and dims the fairy gold? 
Think, thou hast read the scroll of Time un- 
rolled ; 

Think, thou hast trod the soil of heaven's 
plain. 

Conquered the stars, yet stooped to feel again 
White arms of Love that comfort and enfold ! 

For we are all that man may will to be — 
There are no fetters that we may not break, 
There are no highways that we may not take. 

Nor for our restless keels a shoreless sea: 

Till at the dawning, when we dreamers wake, 

The blind World thanks us for — reality! 



O dream-desires that wane unsatisfied. 
Ye are as 'plaintive as the soft snow-lips 
That kiss so lightly on the window-glass. 
Yet hark! The iron wind splits tlie rim of 
night. 
Breaking a gateway to the hopeful stars! 
An orient dream of jewelled blue, — and then 
The red moon spills her wine across the snow. 

[34] 



THE VERMEIL FLOWER 

Fair maid, fair maid, dreaming in your May- 
time, 
Fair maid, fair maid, shall ye wake to June? 
Dawn may promise glory for the sunny day- 
time — 
Hear ye but the story of the dusty noon ! 
Keep ye still the blossom hidden in your bosom, 
Lest ye wake too soon ! 

Red lips, red lips, wherefore are ye smiling. 
Red lips, red lips, when the world is grey? 
Find ye, then, a morrow for your heart's be- 
guiling. 
Though the morning borrow but grief from 
the day? 
Hold ye to your sleeping lest ye wake to weep- 
ing- 
Dream the years away ! 

Dark eyes, dark eyes, ope ye, then, to vision? 

Dark eyes, dark eyes, are ye glad to see? 
Dare ye bear the scourges of the world's de- 
rision, 
Mockery that urges, " Death will set ye free. 
Sirce ye sinned by living, Death will bring for- 
gimng — 
Aye, but never we '*? 

[35] 



Red bloom, red bloom Youth is fain to cherish, 
Red bloom, red bloom, solace if ye can ! 

Till in spite of kisses all your petals perish, 
And your fairy blisses find a mortal span ! 

Till the jest is ended that we knew so splendid 
Ere the sin began ! 



[36] 



THE CLIFF OF TEARS 
A LYRICAL DRAMA IN ONE ACT 



PERSONS 

Atthis, whom grief has driven raad 
Phaon, a mariner of Lesbos 
Sappho, of Lesbos 



Time, an evening in the spring of the year. 
The place is the headland of Leucate, on the 
coast of the island of Leucadia. To the left 
and rear, the cliff-edge; to the right, a side view 
of the fa<^ade of a small Ionic temple. In the 
centre, a weather-worn stone altar. Left-rear, 
background of sea and sky; right-rear, beyond 
the temple, a dark grove. The sun has already 
set, but a slender moon combines with the after- 
glow to flood the open space before the temple 
with a soft, gradually dimming light. There is 
a smouldering fire on the altar; the smoke goes 
up in a straight, thin wisp. Atthis is discov- 
ered, sitting on the short grass, near the cliff- 
edge. 

Atthis 

[Singing] 

Wealth of vision, charm of dream, 

Gold of sun, and grey of shadow. 
Wait ye where the rollers gleam 
And the nereid-tresses stream 

'Mid the joyous ocean-meadow. 
Through the breakers' rimming thunder 

From the outer sea, 
Lo, we bring ye hints of wonder, 
Till the trembling pebbles seem 

Silver by our sorcery. 

[39] 



Would ye rouse them — will ye dare — 

All the dark forgotten ages, 
All the spectres of despair 
And the red, triumphal glare 

Of our storied pilgrimages? 
Seek ye where the ripples whiten 

'Neath the windy skies. 
Till ye mark the vision brighten 
That shall flame at last as fair 

As the dawn to sleepless eyes ! 

\^As she is singing, Phaon enters, and 
stands watching her. Though he is a 
powerfully-huUt man, he seems travel- 
worn and weary, and leans somewhat 
heavily upon a stout staff ; he is deeply 
bronzed by sun arid wind, and his beard 
is ragged and unkempt. He wears a 
heavy short-sword in a battered sheath, 
and a knife hanging by a thong from his 
neck; his clothes are rough and worn, 
and the travelers' chlamys or cloak is 
cast carelessly over one shoulder. At- 
THis pays no attention to him, but con- 
tinues her song.'] 

Silver-girt, the haunted shore 

Fringes white the Blessed Islands 
Where the laughing rapids pour 
And the breezes leap before, 
[40] 



Droning o'er untrodden highlands ! 
Own ye phantoms of romances 

Cherished half-afraid? 
Look ye, where the pennoned lances 
That the slaves of Helen bore 

Flash to greet ye down the glade ! 

\_She pauses. Phaon steps toward her.'] 

Phaon 

O maiden, once I dreamed a happy dream, 
A dream wherein I seemed to hear your voice. 
Are you not Atthis ? 

Atthis 

[Looking up wildly] 

I am a wraith. 



[Startled] 



Phaon 

A wraith 
Atthis 



I am the ghost of one who died of love ; 
I am the husk and wrappings of her soul; 
I am the shade of her dead heart — 
[She hesitates, and falls silent] 

Phaon 

And yet 
You sing, though sorrowful? 
[41] 



Atthis 

I sing to drown 
The clamor of her sph'it, and to drug 
Her wraith with memories. 

\_She goes to the altar, and throws incense 
upon the fire. The smoke curls fantas- 
tically upward^ 

Look you, 'tis a charm ! 
l^She sings again'\ 

Backward reels the rolling year — 
Lifts Aurora golden-breasted — 
Till the long sea-shadows clear 
And the climbing combers rear 

Purple-robed and silver-crested ! 
Seek ye where the barren reaches 

Meet the windy blue, 
Till ye raise the fairy beaches. 
Till ye hark with dreaming ear 
To the song Ulysses knew. . . . 

Phaon 
Gods ! Maiden, 'tis your voice that is the 

charm. 
Bidding me dream again ! A wraith am I, 
Even as you, O Atthis ! 

Atthis 

All are wraiths, 
Who haunt the graveyards of forgotten joys 
And may not know the sun, but wander blind 
[42] 



Down twilit passages that end in night. . . . 
What seek you in my graveyard, wraith-man ? 

Phaon 

Love, 
From one I loved once, and still love. 

Atthis 

Still love.? 
Look you, wraiths may not love ! Alas, 'tis 

plain 
You are but lately dead — 

Phaon 
[Sadli/] 

Nay, nay ! I died 
A full year since. 

Atthis 

Alas, poor ghost! To love, 
And yet be naught but fog before the wind ! 
What maiden was it ? 

Phaon 

One who loved me well — 
Sappho, the Nymph of Song ! 

Atthis 

'Twas Sappho? Sappho? 
And you — were you, then — Phaon? 
[43] 



Phaon 

I was Phaon — ■ 
And I am Phaon still, though from my breast 
One-half my heart has vanished. 

Atthis 

Oh, accursed ! 
Why walk you 'mid our groves of sorrow? Go ! 
Go, ere the gods destroy you ! 

Phaon 

Nay ! I seek 
Sappho, and I will find her ! 
[Eagerhj] 

Speak, O Atthis ! 
Is Sappho in Leucadia? Rumour said 
She dwelt on Leucate — hermit-like, forlorn, 
Companionless ; saw dreams in altar-smoke. 
And played the seeress for the shepherds' wives, 
And was thought mad by simple countrymen, 
But was beloved because she sang their hearts 
Full of sweet tears ! 

[He hows his head] 

O Atthis, 'twas a ghost, 
An evil ghost of love and jealousy 
That parted us — yet might not bear the dawn 
Of loneliness — 

Atthis 
[Wildhj] 

You seek for Sappho ? Go ! 
[44] 



There is no Sappho here — though I know a 

wraith 
I think was hers once. You may hear it wail, 
Gliding betwixt the tree-trunks. — See! see, 
Phaon ! 

\_She points to a dark opening among the 
trees, and goes toward it. Phaon starts, 
wheels, and makes as if to follow her; 
hut he can see nothing~\ 

Phaon 

Where, Atthis — where ? 'Tis naught but 
blackness yonder! 

Atthis 

[From the shadow^ 
She floats like dying music through the grove. 
And strings the horned moon for her silver lyre ! 
[Atthis vanishes. Phaon stands motion- 
less, as if in doubt. As he is peering 
through the deepenvng twilight, the 
sound of singing comes from somewhere 
on the shore below; it is the chant of 
late-returning fishermen. Phaon starts, 
as if he recognized the song, and goes 
quickly to the cliff-edge to look over. 
As he is standing with his back to the 
grove, Sappho emerges from its shadow, 
and stands regarding him J 
[45] 



Voices 

If so ye come from the breed that is born with a 

strain of the salt in the blood of its veins, 

Surely ye know how the sprites of the wind 

with invisible magic entangle the heart, 

Snaring the fancy with stories of roving and 

roaming and loving and luring refrains 

Snatched from the drone of the surf on the 

sand when the dawn leaps to flame and 

the dark splits apart. 

Then have ye seen her, in dreams though it be, 

when she loosened her hair for the sport 

of the breeze — 
Seen how it streamed in an ebon cascade like 

a river of night on an isle of the dawn. 
Laving the shoulders of sun-painted bronze with 

its silken caress as she stooped to the 

seas 
Creaming in ripples to shapely mid-thigh, ere 

she plunged from the reef and the vision 

was gone? 

Or have ye found her at sea, when the forefoot 
is slashing in flame through the limitless 
night. 
Then have ye seen her asleep on the rollers, 
her hair like a veil on the breast of the 
wave ? — 

[46] 



Glimpsed her a moment and dropped her behind 
where the wake is a wavering welter of 
light; 
Looked for a moment, and then — for a life- 
time have tried to forget her who held 
you a slave? 

Phaon 

'Twas a sea-chorus Sappho wrought! I hear 

her 
Even now — how she sang it from the deck 
Of that poor trireme that was wrecked off Athos 
A long six months i' the past ! O gods, how 

long! 
I have grown old and died in heart and soul. 
Known torment of mind and body, since the 

night 
Her white sails glimmered paling doAvn the sea 
To fade in the dusk-veil! 

[Turning, and recognizing Sappho] 

Sappho ! Can it be Sappho ? 

Sappho 
Phaon — ah, Phaon ! Why — ? 

Phaon 

[Leaping toward her] 

Sappho, is it you ? 
[47] 



Sappho 

[Shrinking from him] 

Why have you followed me? Whence do you 
come? This isle 

I dreamed my underworld of sorrow — safe 

From all but ghosts of joys, that turn to tor- 
ments 

With the slow-fading memory — 

Phaon 

Sappho, I come 
To take you home — to Lesbos! Listen! 

News ! 
News that should make your pulses dance ! Al- 

caeus, 
He whose half-love was swift to turn to hate, 
Is exiled, this month past, to Cyprus ; Pittakos 
Can scarce maintain his throne with foreign 

swords, 
And gauges days of power by yellow coins 
Doled from his treasury : while the people cry ^^ 
For " Sappho! Sappho! Song and love! " 

again. 
And to placate them he commutes your exile, 
And bids me seek you, bring you swift to Lesbos, 
Though the home-harbor hailed me from the sea 
A scant sun-cycle ere he yielded ! Lo, 
I greet you, Sappho, fresh from shipwreck: 

death 

[48] 



In Chalcidice trod upon my heels. 
But I am purged in soul of poisoned thoughts 
By the dear gift of love that lives anew — 
Love that I know at last has never died, 
E'en though it seemed to sleep — 

Sappho 

But 'tis too late — 
Too late ! 

Phaon 
[Eagerli/] 

And how too late ? The tyrant yields ; 
If you but say the words, the people rise. 
Topple him from his pedestal — though his 

guard 
Were doubly, trebly bought — and cast him 

forth 
To find his dog's way back to Sparta ! I, 
I also, Sappho ; I, who love you still — 
Love you f orevermore - — I plead with you. 
Think — think ; you loved me once — 

Sappho 

[Half to herself] 

Too late ! Too late ! 
It is too late. But ah ! the Lesbian hills — 
Olive and cedar, cool dark green, and grey 
That silvers with the zephyrs ; and the peaks — 
Violet and ash-of -roses on the sky 
[49] 



When the sun tops the Asian ranges, grim 

As sentinels of Eos in the dawn ! 

And the bright, sun-gay valleys, all a-dream, 

With hum of bee and flaunt of painted wing 

Making the noonday trance of summer 
breathe. . . . 

Gods ! Will the grapes still purple in the vine- 
yards ? 

The must be gay with sharpening perfume — 
all 

As ere I left? 

Phaon 
Nay, nay ! The vines will droop 
With sorrow, and the wine will turn to tears, 
Till you return ! The whole isle weeps for Sap- 
pho ; 
All Lesbos calls you — 

Sappho 

Ay, I fain would see 
Once more the pharos-light blaze out to guide 
The sea-worn galley home — to Lesbos ! 

Phaon 

Come ! 

Look, Sappho! I, your Phaon, call you! 

Come ! 
Your home, and mine, is waiting ! 
[50] 



Sappho 

[D2dl2/] 

'Tis too late. 
The failing torch is dimming in the gloom, 
The festival is over ! It is dark — 
And jaded revelers should sleep at last, 
Ere the far morn surprise them. 

Phaon 

Sappho, wake ! 
You look as one who staggers through a dream, 
Beset by weary horrors ! Wake ! 

Sappho 
IRousing] 

Dreams ? Dreams ? 
Are they but dreams, then? Nay, but memo- 
ries ! Phaon, 
Lightly you loved me once, and lightly cast 
My love away, when I had kneeled to you 
In the dust of shame ! And now you come with 

love — 
True, honest love, to cloak you like a robe 
In a tragic mimicry ! Gods ! Do I starve for 

love. 
That I should snatch the crumbs from another's 

feast. 
Grovel and fawn and clutch at empty shows 
Of condescension mocking love.? 
[51] 



Phaon 

[^Earnestly^ stepping towards her] 

I bring 
My very soul in my hands, O Sappho — lay it 
For your dear feet to trample. Should you 

deign 
To wear it in your bosom as a rose 
But for a passing hour, then I would be 
As favored by the high gods ! There is a fire 
That rushes flaming through my veins, and none 
But you can quench it ! Heart of my heart, be 

kind! 
Love me again as once you loved, and I 
Will pay for each tear that your eyes have shed 
With a thousand kisses, a thousand homages — 

tribute 
That I have owed unknowing from the first ! 

[He attempts to take her in his arms] 

Sappho 
[Retreating] 
Back — back ! Nay, touch me not ! 

Phaon 

[Passionately] 

Can I check my love 
When it leaps like a ship before the wind — 
When I have starved for you for months, and 
dreamed 

[52] 



Of one more night of bliss on Leucate? 
You were not wont to shun me ! 

Sappho 

Nay, nor you 
To hold from others when your passion drove ! 
Love, say you? Oh, you stain the sacred word, 
Breathing it through such lips ! Back ! Touch 

me not! 
Gods, have I sinned so greatly that this last 
Base punishment falls on me? 

Kiss me, then ! 
Kiss me, and stain us both so black with shame 
All Lethe could not win us peace ! 
[She turns to him^ 

Phaon 

[Taking her in his arms^ 

Ah, Sappho, 
Where is the shame when lovers kiss? 'Twere 

shame 
Did they not so ! O night and Leucate ! 
My heart is like a lyre that Sappho's fingers 
Pluck to melodious music ; all my soul 
Springs to my lips to perish of a kiss ! 

[He bends to hiss her, hut she suddenly 
eludes him, laughing wildly^ 
[53] 



Sappho 

Then perish, poor soul, i' the dark ! And as for 

shame — 
Methinks there lived a girl in Lemnos once — 
A slip of a girl — a trifle — 'twas Theonoe ; 
Theodota — what called they her? 'Tis 

naught ! 
She was twice-happy, giving Phaon pleasure — 
First, in the deed, and next in the pleasant sense 
That she was least of burdens on his mind ! 
Dead loves are like dead leaves — the autumn 

breeze 
Blows the June-revel's fantasies away. 
Dead loves — are dead, O Phaon ! 

Phaon 

Ay — but lead 
Perchance to love that never dies ! 

Sappho 

[Stepping slowly backward towards the 
cliff -edge^ 

Then kiss me! 
Kiss me, O Phaon ! See, I am here, and wait 

you! 
Are my lips red? Then kiss them, Phaon, kiss 

them! 
Is my hair silken ? Stroke it, Phaon — wind 
Your whole heart in its meshes ! Are my arms 
£54] 



So soft and white? They clasp you, Phaon, 

clasp you 
Close to my bosom! See, they are eager! 

Come! 
This night I am yours, O Phaon! Come and 

take me ! 
I am the Sappho men call Nymph of Song, 
And I will sing to you and love you ! Hark ! 

Phaon 

\^Following her^ 
You are a witch o' the night— a nymph o' the 
moon ! 

Sappho 

Nay, I am only Sappho, singing dirges 
To a gay lilting love-tune ! 

Sands of the sounding sea, 

Let it be written here 
All that a life may be, 

All it may fear. 

Life is — and may be — God, 
Winning to heights supreme 

Where e'en the heroes trod 
Only in dream. 
[55] 



Life is — and may be — Love ! 

Ay ! — or a spent desire, 
Mocking its heights above 

Out of the mire ! 

'Tis too sad? 
A pest on songs ! Are songs a match for love? 
Come, Phaon ! I am hungry for your arms ! 
Come, Phaon ! Kiss me — kiss me ! 



Phaon 

lExultingli^'] 

Sappho ! Sappho ! 

[He lea/ps forward, hut she steps hack, 
evading his arms, and halances on the 
very hrvnk of the cliff. For a moment 
she stands silhouetted against the 
faintly -moonlit hackground of sea and 
sky; her arms are outstretched. Phaon 
clutches at her, hut he is too late'\ 

Sappho 

Ay, kiss me — farewell ! 

[She wheels quickly, and springs into the 
sea. A cloud covers the moon; the wa- 
ters turn suddenly indigo-dark; through 
the shadow, Phaon can harely he dis- 
[56] 



tinguished, crouched on the cU^-rvm, 
shouting frantically into the blackness 
helow'] 

Phaon 
Sappho! Sappho! Sappho! 



CURTAIN 



[57] 



" CURTAIN " 

CRITIC that waits in the shadow, methinks I have 

loved too well 
The bright little dreams that dance so light in 

the Masque of our Age ; 
Methinks I have bowed over-oft in the past to the 

tinsel's spell, 
Till my soul is as blank as the calcium-glare on 

an empty stage. 

1 have felt that the most of my tears were as false 

as my jests; 

Of the real that was mine for the living, I 
wrought me a play — 
Till the passions I knew were the passions I bor- 
rowed from puppets' breasts, 

And the flame of my love as the footlights' glow 
to the blaze of the day. 

And yet, at the height of my masking, I dream that 
my heart has known 
For an instant the wonder and thrill of a might- 
ier drama than all — 
And I pray such a moment of truth for my aid, 
when I stammer alone 
My last weak lines to an emptied pit ere the 
curtain falls. 



[58] 



